Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!elf115!rec
From: rec@elf115.uu.net (Roger Critchlow)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: (none)
Summary: real software police carrying real guns
Message-ID: <119@elf115.uu.net>
Date: 7 Jun 89 19:13:18 GMT
References: <8906061911.AA00320@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> <4850@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
Distribution: gnu
Organization: ELF, Sea Cliff, NY
Lines: 60



In article <3323@cps3xx.UUCP>
rang@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang) writes
>In article <8906061911.AA00320@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> rms@AI.MIT.EDU writes:
>
>   The fight for the freedom to program has not escalated to the level of
>   killing.  Apple is not trying to shoot programmers who write
>   compatible software, and we are not trying to shoot the employees of
>   Apple.
>   [ and more, some quoted below ]
>Hmm.  I used to think FSF people were sane....

In article <4850@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
markv@tillamook.uucp (Mark VandeWettering) writes:
>In article <8906061911.AA00320@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> rms@AI.MIT.EDU writes:
>
>>However, they are trying to arrange to send men with guns (police) to
>>stop us from writing compatible software.  They probably will try to
>>avoid shooting, but they may well imprison some of us for years if we
>>refuse to stop.
>
>	I second the notion expressed earlier: get a grip.

                       A True Story

A friend of mine is one of four principles (two programmers and
two businessmen) in a small company which sells an expensive
commodities trading program for PC's.  Over a year ago they
discovered an equally small ring of pirates who were reselling
their program.  They collected evidence of the piracy, went before
a Federal judge in Chicago in closed session, and obtained the
necessary papers to seize any evidence which might bolster their
claim and establish the degree of damages which they due.  The
actual court order, which I read when the friend stopped over
for a night, gave him the right to examine any forms of information
storage which might be found during the raid.  They then descended
upon the pirates with papers, US Marshalls, and private detectives.

At least one of the detectives planned to carry a gun.  I can't
say whether US Marshalls carry guns as a matter of routine, but
I'm sure that they aren't required to be unarmed.  There was a
smell of danger in the air, as they say in bad novels.

The outcome was so anticlimactic that I'm uncertain how it ended.
The raids, simultaneous in four states, went off without a hitch.
The pirates offered no resistance.  Evidence was collected, but the
piracy was not as serious as imagined.  Perhaps the culprits simply
repented their evil ways, promised to walk the straight and narrow
in the future, and that was the end of it.

                         Inference

If Apple wins its look and feel suit, it will have the legal standing
to protect its 'property' rights in the same manner.  If it protects
the monopoly which it is working so hard to establish, then you, too,
could be visited by real software police carrying real guns in your
home or office.

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